It started with Consumerism, people and products, psychological testing and techniques to get us to buy those products. And keep buying them, changing them, desiring more and different.

And as the Monopoly machine moved forward, a change seems to have occurred in the last decade or so. Where we are no longer the customer and the buyer, no longer the consumer, we appear to have become the consumed. We are the product.

Where the corporate provider has turned into a corporate hoover. Rather than sell you things and keep providing to you, they want to strip everything back, take your houses, your possessions, your livelihood, and even separate you from your family. To be an individual pod that can provide itself as the product. So you can provide to them. Your data, thoughts, health, time and offspring.

But initially, we were already consumed, because in order for that conveyor to keep moving, it required our time and thoughts, to be consumed by society and what it wanted from us. To make sure we qualify and are graded, that we are allowed to take part, that we don’t get left out or ignored, each lining up to take our place that had been set for us. Not just by society of course, we ran with the idea quite well in our own groups and smaller family structures, created our own little systems to run within it, Expectations and circumstance shaping much of the mentality that emerged.

Being aware that you are A Commodity doesn’t change it though, as for the most part, I don’t think people really minded the exchange of time into money. Then you exchange your money for things you need to be able to continue to give them your time, and get that money. Going back and forth like a perfect cycle. Except now it’s all gone a bit wrong, it seems more time is required, to make more money, just so they can take more money from you. Making Money from Misery seems to be the new model unfortunately, with the previous ideas of stability, consistency and prosperity being overhauled, with a new unstable, inconsistent and weak mindset leading the way. Somewhat mind-boggling to many that so few people are allowed to be ‘in charge’ of such important decisions and changes, without being accountable or having to face any consequences. In fact, they often get rewarded for incompetence and gross misconduct, facing no real-life comeback at all. It really is quite bizarre, unless you realise that none of us probably are beholden to many laws, or written rules they come up with and pretend to play by. As if we are all just playing some rather vast and elaborate game of make-believe, pretending the person who claimed to be king in the castle was in fact so, but actually it was just a sofa fort and a bunch of kids, using their imagination to create and maintain the illusion. Until you were called in for dinner, then it all just dropped away in a second, as if it none of it was real in the first place…

(c) MKW Publishing